


nobody there to catch us when we fall

by orphan_account



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Other, origin fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:51:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he is roused from his sleep by red lights and flashing alarms, he has lost count of how many days he has been adrift without any contact from his crew. His communicator does little for the way of it since there’s not communication in this pod intended to have coordinates, which his doesn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nobody there to catch us when we fall

**Author's Note:**

> hello again friends! i know im TERRIBLE at keeping these fics going but its just that i lose heart and inspiration so quickly! anyway this is what i suppose i wish happened to xeph and how he got to minecraftia!!! please enjoy
> 
> the fic title is based on [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9M7NSIBM0), while the chapter title is based on [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xuhA3cj78)!

            He wakes up with the smell of cold metal in the air and with a start. The sweat on his body makes it uncomfortable to move but also to stand still; hair is matted and knotted against his forehead, damp towards the hairline. It isn’t as though he’s had any nightmares, of course not, but the lack of dreams altogether is off-putting. His inability to produce lights and sounds and images makes his blood curdle, because in his unconscious state he should have been able to produce them. His life is full of vividly dull sharp lines and corners, sure, but there had to be something there, right?

            Such is the thought that sends Xephos on a sort of frenzy, tearing through his drawers and the ship’s library for something, anything he hasn’t read. Into the early morning he sits and sifts through the world maps and multiple copies of Jules Verne that someone has brought on the ship from who-knows-where. He’s read them all, seen all the charted planets and smelled that of crisp stars.

            Xephos sits stooped over some charts, taking a nap on them when the day gets particularly boring. A cold hand claps him on the shoulder, startling him awake and falling from his chair. He’s drooled all over it and his crewmate, a young green-skinned man called Benton, lets out a little snort. Xephos smiles reassuringly towards him, and Benton lets out what he’s been sent for.

            “A man has invited you to dinner, Captain.” Xephos turns and raises an eyebrow, listening intently. “The whole crew, really. We received word this morning.”

            Xephos nods and yawns absently. There’s a wan look in his eyes, almost that of someone who’s given up fighting. “Yes, well, tell whoever it is that we’ll be there.” He waves him away with his hand and stands to stretch. If he stands on his tiptoes, he can reach the top of the ship’s ceiling, touch it with flat palms. It’s very high, all things considered, since he’s six feet and three inches tall and hasn’t quite stopped growing. He heads back to his room and tidies himself up—his hair’s in a state and his body isn’t quite the picture of hygiene. He gives himself a shower, barely bothering to lather in his grogginess. He gets dressed and it’s all quite a blur, so is the shave and finishing touches. When he joins his crew on the boarding deck of some interesting space cruise ship, he decides it’s best if he at least pretends to be interested.

            Xephos mingles with the crowd, and he supposes the drunken and wildly colored party guests are, by any standards, alright. They aren’t the most interesting companions by way of conversation, but they’re something. One, he notes, has a very vibrant yellowish tint to his skin and is extremely intent on eye contact. (He doesn’t know, and he won’t know, but later he’d play a role in his life.) Either way, they have a strikingly philosophical conversation about the nature of politics, this and that conversation Xephos can’t quite keep up with in his state.

            Some time later, in the party’s wild climax, he gets mistaken for someone called Wolfram and shoved into an escape pod by some form of sabotage or bullying. His crew rushes, but he’s already been deployed and his hands are shaking as they pound against the reinforced material that acts as a sort of porthole. He’s watching them fade away into nothingness of space, watches for ages. He sleeps at some point, and thankfully there’s enough room in this pod for him to wake steps and use the restroom when he needs to and eat when he needs to.

            When he is roused from his sleep by red lights and flashing alarms, he has lost count of how many days he has been adrift without any contact from his crew. His communicator does little for the way of it since there’s not communication in this pod intended to have coordinates, which his doesn’t. He, in his sleepiness and lack of adequate reaction time, manages to fail miserably at stopping the cause of alarm—a descention into the atmosphere of a planet that is uncharted. When he’s certain that he’s got it, he makes impact that makes him so ill that he blacks out.

    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            A man wakes up with the smell of blood in the air and his heart leaping through his teeth, covered in dirt and dusk and a bit bruised, but alright. He felt a faint something….déjà vu? That seemed like a right word. Something, someone is standing over him. A man? He’s very small and very stout and he might be otherworldly but the original man can’t remember whether he knows this man or not. The stout man seems to be saying something but he’s too sick feeling to focus, but he tries.

            “Listen up, will you, stop givin’ me that blank look!” the stout man cries, clearly exasperated to his last nerve. “Who are ye, and why are ye on my property?”

            Who is he, though? He can’t remember at all. He has a thin body, he knows this. He has large hands and a scratchy bit of facial hair and very long legs. His body aches and he barely registers it when the stout man drags him out of the flaming and smoldering whatever-it-is that’s got him snugly but uncomfortably trapped.

            “Are you even listening, you sack of meat?” the stout man cries again.

            “Yes, I am.” When had he learned to speak? No matter, he could do that, and he could walk alright. And you had been listening, to be fair. Sort of.

            “Well, bugger me, he speaks!” This man, ginger beard and all sorts of braids and matted curls and such, seems to have two volumes: loud and exasperatedly loud. It’s almost endearing, and this tall man reckons that if he wasn’t at the receiving in of this mother-hen reaction to how little response he was getting, he’d think it really was. But his head is pounding like it’s going to rip into three pieces and his arms and legs are still sluggishly responding.

            “Who are ye, then, Mr. Quiet?”

            “Is that my name?” you ask, voice trailing off into a murmur. “It doesn’t ring a bell…I don’t think that’s my name.”

            The stout man groans. “No! That’s what I’m askin’! Tell me yer name before I chop ye into pieces for just annoyin’ me!” To punctuate it, he jabs the tall man with his elbow. It doesn’t hurt much because his arms are chubby and the other’s hip is mostly bone. It’s more of a cushion, something warm to recognize that the tall man does, in fact, have senses.

            “Oh.”

            For a while it’s quiet, nothing but the sound of collective crunching through snow. Snow? That was something he knew. Did he grow up with snow? Probably not maybe he hoped so. It fell around his shoulders and matted with his eyelashes like cold stardust, kissing his cold nose and cheeks and dampening his hair significantly.

            The stout man—dwarf—takes the tall man to what is assumed to be his home, in a bit of a state with tidiness but overall very warm and inviting. The dwarf works in silence for a while and the tall man examines things around the home. A stick with sharp metal attached to both ends has a name carved into it, one that the tall man considers is the dwarf’s name.

            “Honeydew?” he calls, and there is a clatter of metal against metal against wood and stone.

            The dwarf’s head pops out from a barrier between rooms and he looks at the tall man incredulously. “How did you know that?” He looks relieved when the weapon is presented, rolling his eyes and going back to whatever shenanigans dwarves got up to in their spare time.

            “Is that your name?” the tall man asks.

            “Yes, it is. Honeydew of Khaz Modan,” Honeydew says happily, voice beaming proudly from across what little room they had between them.

    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            It’s later, when the tall man is bunched up in the cruel womb of darkness, legs hanging precariously off of the half of the bed that the dwarf isn’t occupying, that he remembers his own name. It reverberates like a drum, hits him hard in the chest.

            Xephos. Zeff-os. That was his name. Captain Xephos.

            Captain Xephos yawns, stretches his legs for the umpteenth time in about an hour, and rolls over, back facing Honeydew, that mass of body heat. He can feel the sleep coming to him, beckoning to him, and he lets it come.

            Xephos. Xephos, Xephos, Xephos.


End file.
